The Real Pace of Change: Institutional Views on Alternative Payment Rails

FinanceX Research by Sean Murphy

For decades, the infrastructure moving money across borders has been defined by the same constraints: slow settlement, high costs, and capital tied up waiting for transactions to clear. The system works. But increasingly, it works badly enough that the industry is asking whether it needs to be replaced or reimagined.

Survey

To find out, we surveyed more than 50 senior payments executives across two camps: traditional institutions and New Wave firms. The question was straightforward: what will actually drive adoption of alternative payment rails? The answers were more complicated than expected.

Speed and cost dominate the conversation. Fifty-eight percent of respondents cited faster settlement as a primary benefit, with lower transaction costs close behind at 52%. What is more striking is how far they outrank transparency and counterparty-risk reduction. In board-level discussions, the pitch is efficiency, not safety.

But efficiency gains alone do not resolve the deeper problem. Seventy-two percent rated reducing pre-funding and trapped liquidity as critical or important. The money sitting idle in nostro accounts represents a real and persistent cost. The solutions are not yet deployed at scale.

Adoption is Not a Question of If, But When

The single biggest barrier is regulatory uncertainty, cited by 66% of respondents. When asked what would most accelerate adoption, answers clustered around three things: regulatory clarity, cost reduction, and partnerships or ecosystem availability. The formula isdirect: permission plus economics plus distribution. Traditional institutions are waiting for the first of those three. New Wave firms are already acting on the other two.

Only 2% of respondents had meaningfully explored tokenised deposits. More than 75% said they would be likely or very likely to use them if offered through regulated institutions. That gap reflects latent demand waiting on a regulatory framework that has not yet arrived.

The full whitepaper publishes next month and goes deeper on each of these findings, including direct perspectives from banking and fintech executives. It examines where the divergence between traditional and New Wave institutions is narrowing and what it would actually take to move the needle.